All recruited patients underwent the following:
  1. Chest X
  2. CT chest
  3. Complete blood count (CBC)
  4. Arterial blood gas (ABG)
  5. RT‐PCR assay to detect SARS‐CoV‐2.
  6. Lung ultrasound (LUS): with the following precautions
Two trained medical personnels, one ICU physician and one ICU nurse, entered the isolation room respecting all the preventive measures for respiratory, droplet and contact isolation provided by the World Health Organization for the nCoV-19 outbreak (12). The ultrasound probe and the tablet were put in two different sterile, plastic probe and tablet covers.
Imaging was performed using a curvilinear probe (2–5 MHz) with different devices according to the availability in each center. Six-point lung ULS (three in each hemithorax) was performed as described in the BLUE protocol (B edside L ung U ltrasonography in E mergency) (13).
Echocardiography : according to its availability, with precautions for the operators and for the probe similar to those exerted to lung ULS.